THE PLEASURE EQUATION

I’m at the open-air pool. It’s the first weekend of my favourite summer escape. Cool water, trees, grass and a council-subsidised bar. I choose the afternoon sun for my pale English flesh. I smell the chlorine that impregnates my towel. Tiny insects mountaineer on my body hairs. I’m reading Michel Houlbecq, a little stupefied by the heat. I contemplate the conical nipples of the young woman next to me – topless like most – but my gaze also meets that of an adolescent Moroccan who eyes me repeatedly as a potential fuck/client.

So complicated. It is a feast of flesh here. The Caso de Campo outdoor pool is famous as a gay meeting spot - and at times you do appear to have wandered into the pages of a swimwear catalogue for men – but “Hay de todo”: gay, straight, whatever, cheek by jowl with a mass of families.

In the pool, an attractive young couple canoodled increasingly passionately in the water, pressed against the wall, oblivious or uncaring of the people who dangled their feet right at their side, or paddled close by. As I swam back and forth I tried to judge whether they were actually fucking or just mutually masturbating. There came a moment where the girl’s wicked smile turned to an expression of such happy abandon that I felt sure he was inside her.

I pull my attention back to the book. I like this; propped up on elbows, sun on my back, deep in a good read. Only one thing irks – the pain in the three ribs I broke many years ago, which has returned and refuses to leave. As has the pain in my back. And the pain in my hip has yet to give me a day off since it began. All reminders that something is not right: a something that is increasingly probably arthritis and possibly (my consultant informs me) a particularly nasty form. Scanning, nerve tests and more bloodsucking should yield more clues in July.

Meanwhile, I have decided to resist seeking more hair-raising details on the all-knowing internet and prefer to work on keeping myself in good shape. Hence, taking myself to these little municipal paradises to swim. But there are even more motivating ways to stay in form.

On Friday I arrived home from work at nearly 11pm and realised:

A)I was aching a lot and tired

B) A certain woman (see Out of My Head on E.) was suddenly and unexpectedly alone, without daughter or sister at home.

C) She had just sent me a stunningly erotic e-mail in which she laid out in detail some of the extremes she wanted to go to with me – and had illustrated this with a series of highly provocative self-portraits (well, actually none showed her face).

So I rang her and discovered that:

D) She really wanted to see me, but

E) She was totally knackered after rising early, with only three hours’ sleep, so preferred to meet the next day for lunch or possibly at night (babysitter permitting).

Now, I did Maths ‘A’ Level and still remember a little, so I quickly applied myself to the problem and realised that:

(B+D) – (A+E) = mH

But, surprisingly:

(B+D) – (A+E) + C = hH

Where:

mH = my House
hH = her House

I therefore proposed an impromptu visit, which she reluctantly rejected on ‘logical’ grounds, citing E. Since she didn’t study Maths to the same level, I decided it was pointless to argue the finer points of equations and suggested she get some sleep, signing off with “I’ll call you.”.

I kept my word. I called her at 2.00 a.m. from outside the door of her building. Incredulous, sleepy and visibly turned on, she found herself subjected to a large part of C until dawn.

And I made another important mathematical discovery. Under certain circumstances, the value of A is, in fact, zero and needn’t be entered into the equation at all.

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